With the New England Patriots failing to reach today's Super Bowl, many across SouthCoast are digging deep to find different reasons to root on either the San Francisco 49ers or the Baltimore Ravens in the big game.

But for Kevin Silva of New Bedford, it's a game he's waited nearly 20 years to see.

"I've been a 49ers fan since I was 5 years old," he said. "It all started with my mother buying a shirt for me when I was five. She could have bought any team, but she bought the 49ers, and I've stuck with them ever since."

That was 30 years ago, and Silva grew up in the era in which he watched Joe Montana, Jerry Rice and Steve Young lead San Francisco to five Super Bowl titles. There was a whole group of kids growing up in his neighborhood in the South End that were 49ers fans as a result.

"Back then, the Patriots never won. That was back in their 1-15 days," he said. "Nobody wanted to root for a team that only one game, and the fact that the Niners had the best quarterback (Montana) and the best receiver (Rice) and were on TV all the time helped their popularity."

Silva and his friends played sandlot football, with kids pretending to be their favorite Niner.

"One was Joe, one was Rice. We had Tom Rathman, Brent Jones. We were the 49ers playing other 49ers," he said with a laugh. "Sometimes there would be some Dolphins fans so we'd get to have Dan Marino vs. Joe Montana."

Silva said it was tough going through the lean years, when the Niners were led by quarterbacks like Jeff Garcia and Trent Dilfer. He's ecstatic that they've finally built a team that once again can play for a championship, and he expects they'll remain contenders for years to come.

"I've been accused of being like a Yankees fan," he said of the stigma that comes with rooting for the Yankees in Red Sox country. "I've always thought I was known as a Niners fan, but now apparently I am known as THE Niners fan. People tell me, 'Just win with grace, Kevin,' but these are the same people I had to listen to for years about the Pats, and about how Tom Brady is better than Montana. Keep it in check and win with grace? I don't think so."

In fact, Silva started a new job following the Patriots' loss to the Ravens, and went into work in full 49ers gear.

"That was a bad idea," he said. "Everyone was still bleeding from the loss. But I've been wearing my NFC Champions hat to work, because that's just the way it goes. We 49ers fans deserve it."

Even though they've scattered all over, Silva still keeps in touch with his old neighborhood friends and fellow 49ers fans via Facebook. He's also connected with other Niners fans online as well.

"One kid, he was a Niners fan, and then all of a sudden he's got a picture of himself all decked out in Patriots gear," he said. "I asked him what happened, and he told me he grew up and became a man. I asked him, 'Who told you that you're a man?' If being a man means being a Patriots fan, I'd rather not be a man."

Silva hasn't decided where he'll watch the game today. He said part of him wants to have people over his house, and part of him wants to be the lone 49ers fan watching it in a bar.

"I just know I have to be around people," he said. "I work second shift, and my first Sunday I was scheduled to work was Super Bowl Sunday, so I had to make a switch. I know I'm the new guy on campus, but I told everyone I'd call out if I had to. This game has been a long time coming."

Silva has also been surprised by how many fellow 49ers fans he's encountered in the SouthCoast area over the past two weeks.

"I went into the store to buy my NFC Champs hat, and I saw a guy in full Niners gear," he said. "Then I saw a kid in (Michael) Crabtree jersey that I didn't even know, and he hugged me, and we sat for an hour and a half and just talked."

But Silva remembered to get his hat, to go with all the other San Fran paraphernalia he'll be sporting today. The only catch is that he can no longer wear that same t-shirt that started his lifelong love of the Niners.

"Nah, it stopped fitting me a long time ago, but I still have it," he said. "My 4-year-old daughter, Delilah, wears it, which is awesome to see."

Wareham's George Ramos, Jr. doesn't need a t-shirt or a hat to show that he's cheering on the 49ers. It's written all over his face.

When second-year sensation Colin Kaepernick first replaced Alex Smith as the quarterback of the 49ers, a few friends started telling Ramos that he resembled the up-and-coming star. Ramos had never heard of him, but became interested once he saw him play.

"I was originally a Pats fan. Actually, I'm still a Pats fan," Ramos said. "But when people started to say I looked like him, I took more of an interest in the 49ers. When somebody posted a side-by-side photo of us on Facebook, I was like, 'Wow, the similarity is kind of creepy.'"

Once he started paying attention to Kaepernick and the Niners, Ramos instantly became a fan. He plans on watching the Super Bowl at a social club in East Providence where he is a member, and won't be ashamed to use his newfound role as a Super Bowl quarterback's doppelganger to score a few free drinks from his friends.

"It's going to be a close game," he said, noting that he was hoping to get all decked out in San Fran gear for the game but that he was having trouble finding apparel in local stores.

The 23-year-old has lived in Wareham his entire life, but that hasn't stopped people from wondering if Kaepernick is somehow walking down their own streets.

"I was in Stop and Shop, and one lady did a double-take when she saw me," said Ramos, who is also about the same height as the quarterback and has a few tattoos as well. "At first I wondered why, but then I realized she probably thought I look like Kaepernick. I can only imagine what it will be like if the 49ers win the Super Bowl."

While the 49ers past success in the Joe Montana-Steve Young days accounts for much of the San Fran fans in the SouthCoast region, the few who root for the Ravens have markedly different reasons for supporting Baltimore.

New Bedford's Mike Oliveira has been walking around all week sporting a Ravens sweatshirt and hat, and has become used to the funny looks he gets from Patriots fans when he's all decked out in his purple and black. But when some irate New England fan comes up to him and asks why Oliveira would risk flying the colors of the team that just ended the season of their beloved Patriots, they walk away hearing an uplifting story about how friendship is far more important than football.

"I'm not a Ravens fan. I'm a Clarence Brooks fan," said Oliveira, who has known the Ravens' defensive line coach, a New Bedford High graduate, since his teenage years. "I tell people about what a great person he is, and what a great coach he is, and that I wear this stuff that Clarence sent to me to show my support for him."

Oliveira and his friends and family normally root for the Patriots, but he said there are a whole slew of folks in New Bedford who are willing to show support for the Ravens in order to express their love and admiration for Brooks.

"You don't see many people around here wearing Ravens stuff, that's for sure," Oliveira said. "But when you've got a New Bedford native that is actually coaching in the Super Bowl, that's quite an exciting tribute to the city, and it shows our kids that if you work hard enough, you never know where you can go."

Dartmouth's Bob Conklin is a fan of two teams — the Oakland Raiders, whom he always rooted for, and the Jacksonville Jaguars, because he's very close with Jordan Todman and the Cruz family.

"I know the Raiders are never going to see the playoffs any time this century," he said.

So with both of his teams failing to make the playoffs, he follows his own tradition of selecting one postseason team each year and becoming their ultimate fan until the end of their run. At the start of this season's playoffs, he chose the Ravens.

"I chose the Ravens, seeing how nobody likes Ray Lewis and the Ravens," Conklin said, showing a little bit of the anti-establishment defiance for which Raiders fans are known. "They were kind of like the underdog, and this is Ray's last run."

He said he doesn't make a huge financial investment in his temporary teams.

"I might grab a cheap shirt somewhere," he said. "The Vanity Fair Outlet usually has cheap stuff, so I might get one there, just to have something to wear."

Conklin and his neighbor go back-and-forth all season long playing small pranks on each other and making light of Conklin's love of the Raiders and his neighbor's New England fanhood.

"It's hilarious," he said.

One time, the neighbor snuck into Conklin's house while he was watching TV and placed a roll of toilet paper in his bathroom that he had taken the time to write "Raiders (expletive)" on every sheet.

But Conklin got the ultimate revenge when his Ravens beat the Pats two weeks ago.

"Before Christmas, he put a stuffed frog with a Patriots jersey on it (in my yard)," Conklin said. "So while he was at the AFC Championship Game, I painted a 4x8 piece of plywood with 'Go Ravens' on it and put it in a tree in his yard with the frog on top of it in a Ravens shirt. Then I put a spotlight on it so it was the first thing he saw when he came home. It's still up, too."

The one thing Conklin is afraid of is what kind of revenge will be waiting for him if San Francisco wins the Super Bowl.

"I know it's going to be reversed," he said. "I'll end up with a 49ers logo on my front lawn."